On this grey spring day we must remember that wet weather is what our flowers need to bloom. Here is an inspiring reminder.

Falling Garden is a beautiful installation by Swiss artists Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger where a diverse collection of botanical oddities are suspended within a 17th Century Venetian church. One of the coolest things about this piece is that despite it’s aesthetic appeal and dainty whimsy, these objects are incredibly unexpected and sourced from all over the world. Some examples include: plastic berries from India, waste paper from Venice, thorns from Almeria, nylon blossoms from a dollar store, pigs’ teeth from Indonesia, seaweed from Seoul, pigeons’ bones from San Staë, silk buds from Stockholm, wild bore quills from the zoo and rubber snakes from Cincinnati…! It’s also cool that visitors were invited to view the installation by lying on the floor.

Ai Weiwei’s beautiful and conceptual work titled “Blossom” consists of intricate white ceramic flowers oozing from dilapidated spaces. It has been installed on Alcatraz and several hospital ward cells and medical offices. His comment on the piece does a better job conveying the meaning behind the work then I ever could so I’ll leave it at that: “The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”

TeamLab has created a now familiar (thanks to Random International’s Rain Room) interactive installation with over 2300 alive and growing floating flowers. As in the rain room, the work responds to human presence, highlighting the idea that the viewer and the flowers are of the same root.